botach wrote:
I would think that this has been a problem long before the intruction of CAD etc .
Case 1 -in the 70's I had a "H" reg minivan(as in ABC123H) .Now on the car ,the grille coul be removed to get to the oil filter .Not so on the van - it was in a metal case ,unbolted from under the front ,and (for DIY) had to be removed downwards whilst keeping the case upright ( or you got a sleeve full of oil).Replacement was a simlar problem .
Case 2 -same vehicle - the fanbelt -very little room .
Case 3 -Austin Maxi clutch - needed the battery( and housing) out to get anywhere near the hyrdrolic system /get to the plates .
Case4 -Vauxhall cavalierMK2 -to get the head off, require removal of exhaust manifold -best way I found was to take radiator& gril out .
Case 5 Cavalier mk ?(last one made) - head removal ,same problem ,but with injection system ,it was easier to take off alternator .
Case 6 -same model cavelier -Water pump replacement --all securing bolts are Allen keys - after the time to replacement ,the inners are corroded and need to be chisseled out .
etc
etc
etc
Thers seems to be little relationship between ease of doing the simple jobs as time goes by -could this be a ploy to have all jobs referred to dealer ( and force cars not worth the cost off road)
My dad works as a mechanic and is constantly bending my ear about how such-and-such a job would have taken half an hour less "if only they'd moved XXX half an inch"! I've been there myself, to be honest. I still pale at the thought of doing a starter motor on my car, and it's just ONE bolt that's nigh impossible to get to! The truth is, there are all sorts of reasons for this. In the case of my car, it's because they already had the engine and they used to fit it on a rear wheel drive car. When putting it transversely in my car, that was one of the bits that didn't quite fit, but wasn't worth re-tooling and having two different blocks. On other occasions, they design somthing just fine and then for some reason, something else gets changed (unacceptable warranty claim levels, introduction of another feature that wasn't originally planned for, cost reduction, new regulatory requirements...the list is a long one) and they can't be bothered re-engineering the whole thing, so the first bit gets obscured. Other times, the car was designed as a left hand drive and the right hand drive was made in numbers too small to justify mirroring the whole lot, so some parts get in the way of others. One of the big problems on a CAD screen is that you can see there's plenty enough room to get the bulb out...
...but not when someone's hand is in there!
They don't really design cars to be "worked on" - not even by the main dealers. They always aim for "fit-and-forget" for the life of the car. Besides, by the time the cars are maintained by the owners themselves, there's no money in them for the manufacturers (hell, most owner-maintainers doing even buy genuine parts!) so they just don't care!